


long

by liquidsky



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24166846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidsky/pseuds/liquidsky
Summary: "There's a really big fucking chance we shouldn't be doing this," Steve said.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	long

"There's a really fucking big chance we shouldn't be doing this," Steve said, and promptly jumped off the fence and onto the other side, which made it so he was standing in the corner of the lab's barely lit parking lot. He crouched next to a beat-up Mustang, and Billy narrowed his eyes and kept looking at him. 

It was cold, so Billy hunched forward slightly and blew a warm breath onto his cupped palms. It was a bad plan, if he has being honest, but nonetheless it was the one they had, so Billy sucked it up and trailed in silence when Steve walked towards the building and its huge, obnoxious metal doors. He didn't have to wonder how the fuck they were going to push them open, because Steve flicked his wrist briefly and the thick chains fell uselessly to the floor, and Steve pushed one of the sides until they could see the dark whatever-the-fuck inside. Billy followed Steve in, blinking at nothing until Steve turned the switch on and light spilled free over the empty all-white tiles of the room. Somehow, it was even colder inside than it had been out, and Billy stepped closer to Steve and tried not to feel they were odd seconds away from becoming murder victims. 

He wasn't scared, usually—or maybe it would have been more accurate to say that once upon a time he hadn't been, but he felt _off_ now, his previous callousness really fucking dented. He sometimes heard a voice inside his head that wasn't his. The reason they were there was because Billy couldn't convince himself it was over, and Steve was the only person who wasn't adamant that it was. 

Billy had reached the other side, supposedly, the only way out had been through and he'd stumbled across his particular minefield with no remaining dignity, and barely any sanity, and he was so tired and sick now he felt more or less like he wished he could have died in the process. 

There he was, though, alive, and too close to Steve, but instead of pulling away Steve took a step back into Billy's space and turned his face to look at him, "We'll find something." 

Billy believed him only because he didn't have much choice. Steve grabbed Billy by the wrist and pulled him toward another set of doors, which he spread open with a twitch of his cheek, and Billy hadn't asked yet, exactly how that had happened, and who knew about it, and Steve hadn't offered anything but his own silences and awkward pauses. 

Together, they padded into a long, dark hall, and Steve didn't bother turning on any lights this time. They didn't touch a thing but each other, hands clasped, Steve's sweaty and huge, and Billy simply followed along, blinking at the stuffy air and making sure to breathe through his nose. Steve made a small sound, stumbled to a halt—Billy stepped on his foot by accident, mumbled a shitty _sorry_ that Steve didn't answer—and stayed resolutely still. The noise Billy hadn't realized was there until it suddenly stopped faded away into a whisper, and they kept moving only when Steve squeezed Billy's hand and took a tentative step forward. 

There was so much to be unsure about. Constrained between the walls and bouncing between themselves in short bursts of bitter craving—"Do you feel this too?" Billy wanted to ask—but also outside, with the slow drag of week after week, recovering from something there was really no recovering from. Without seeing, they kept walking in the dark, inch after inch gained with his front now brushing Steve's back and his heavy, full coat. 

"Have you—" Billy started, just to say something. The whispering hadn't quite stopped, and he was tired of straining to hear it. "What are you expecting to find?" 

Steve didn't turn to glance at him. He said, "an explanation," tersely, with half a breath. 

"How long have you been like this?"

"Don't know," he said, then, "since you—since you were you again." 

Billy mulled that over, counting backwards to the days he spent sweating himself sick under the aqua-blue duvet in Steve's guest room. His parents hadn't been around much, if ever. 

"You told anyone else?"

Steve answered, "no," and Billy thought he could have let it go, but instead he didn't. 

"Why not?"

"I don't know." 

"You don't know much," Billy pointed out, and Steve dropped his hand abruptly, leaving Billy's palm cold and damp in his wake. 

He stepped on Steve's shoes by accident again after a long step back into him, and this time when he said _sorry_ Steve sighed, said, "don't worry about it." 

Billy heard the rustle of Steve's hand across the fabric of his coat, waited with his fingers spread for Steve's to slot right between them, and he pulled Billy forward after that, so he followed. 

The hall didn't get less dark as they went on, their eyes didn't adjust much, if at all, and Billy followed Steve for what seemed like forever, forward, and forward, and Steve didn't say another word, but Billy could hear his breathing grow louder, impatient, as the hall stretched endlessly under their feet. 

Billy didn't know how much time had passed when Steve stopped, leaned heavy into Billy and turned his head into the crook of his shoulder. He said, "How long—" and didn't wait for an answer. Billy thought he had to have known Billy didn't have one, so he stayed in place, the tip of his nose cold on the skin of Billy's neck, then he pulled away. Billy didn't see any of it—he didn't have to, though, when Steve pushed a palm flat over his shoulder and followed the slope down to his chest, then back up briefly, and down his arm. 

Tangled their fingers again, then turned around and moved. They walked, and Billy felt his knees start going rigid, calves burning, but it was so dark, and there was nothing to see there. So Steve kept going, and he kept following Steve down the hall. His toes hurt inside his boots, his feet damp and heavy, and he realized he had been hunching forward. His back cracked when he stood straight, but it didn't hold—Billy slumped into nothing and dragged his feet across the floor, knocking Steve's again, and Steve didn't say anything, just kept moving. 

"Where—" Billy started, but his voice didn't sound like his voice at all. Sandy, rough; he cleared his throat and asked again. "Where do you think—"

Steve inhaled loudly, cleared his throat before he even spoke, and it clicked with a dry, shitty sound, "it has to be close," he said, and Billy felt a twinge in his hip, had to let go of Steve's hand to support his body, and Steve gasped loudly for breath. "We've been here for—"

Billy looked straight on when he paused. The whispers had stopped, finally, and it was so silent he could hear the exhausted thumping of his own heart echo in his ears. He heard nothing, save for Steve's breathing and his own, then heard hands fiddling with metal, and realized they must have been Steve's. 

Steve stepped back, and the doors splayed open, light so stark against his eyes that Billy hissed, and shut them close. 

"Billy," he heard, Steve's voice sounding very final, and he blinked his eyes open against white, chalky dryness, only to find a room. Empty. All-white tiles. 

His face grew clammy.

"Billy," Steve repeated, and Billy didn't look at him, only ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> writing practice for the day... i kept thinking of _house of leaves_ today for some reason, which then made me think of this (or something like it, anyway).


End file.
